The Exploding Use of Private Video for Self-Improvement

The video revolution is here. YouTube and similar services allow us to prepare a home-made video, upload it, and share it with the world.

However, the initial YouTube press hype centered on the impact of viral video to make a product or a band or a job-seeker or a politician popular (or unpopular). The focus of the buzz around YouTube was the public-availability of self-made videos. Regardless of intent of a video's makers—whether it was to showcase some wild teenage stunts or bring down a politician--these videos were created for the whole world to watch.

But the public video, though entertaining, is only one aspect of the Web 2.0 phenomena. Another, parallel revolution, only just now beginning, is the use of private video.

The benefits of private video will soon become the most utilitarian reason for millions of people across the world to begin using their camcorders and even video-enabled cell phones to start changing their life. OK, it's not as sexy-cool as making a hot lip-sync video but it certainly can be more useful in one's daily life.

Private video will impact both school and business—two areas that touch everyone.

In both school and business the lessons in how to use private video will be very important. In the soon-to-be future "how-to-use video" lessons will be just as important for students as learning to keyboard is now. The ability to frame a good video to use to effectively communicate with allies outside a student's neighborhood will be a required skill in the future. A student will need to make a video of her self—then she'll need the skill and ability to judge if the video she's made is adequate and effective.

Note: these aren't young directors we are creating, here. These are people who need to be able to quickly exploit the new medium of video and integrate it into a useful part of their lives. Imagine a day when a little girl that is an aspiring poet makes a quick video of a choice selection of her readings and sends to two of her friends in different cities to get a quick feedback on her delivery. Both of her friends independently give her tips on how she holds her head, her tempo, how she looks to their eyes.

Yes, components of this collaborative review could have been affected twenty years ago, over the phone and via letter. But because body language and eye contact are such huge components of how we view other humans in person, video is a far superior vehicle for self-review.

The real use of video in our daily lives is just beginning.